Issue 2341 - Wednesday 28 May 2025

Sizzler Jarrod wrote in about the small Chinese hands NYT story in yesterday’s edition, sharing a 2022 story about when the Foxconn workers who make iPhones violently protested over COVID-19 restrictions (SCMP). “The people hurling steel poles are blokes, you'll notice...” Jarrod said. (As always, love hearing from Sizzlers).

The News

EU porn age verification complaint is the beginning of the end of an internet era

Major porn websites will need to introduce age verification methods for European users or face enormous fines (The Guardian). The European Commission announced an investigation into four large porn platforms — Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos — under Digital Services Act. Officials claim that these companies failed to protect children’s mental health from seeing inappropriate content by only having an “ineffective” one click self-declarations to verify age on their sites. These companies will have to introduce something stronger or face fines of up to 6% of turnover. This is a big moment for the global push for age verification, and imo the beginning of the end of an era of the internet that relied on the honesty system to prove age. As usual, this investigation won’t answer the million dollar question: so what are you actually going to do to prove people’s ages online?

Bonus age verification story: a new Mississippi law will let people fine companies up to “$500,000 in noneconomic damages to victims harmed by viewing obscenity.” (Bluesky).

Should punters host their own email?

US software engineer Matthew Sanabria published a simple blog post Own Your Own Domain (Matthew Sanabria). It argues if you use Gmail or Hotmail or any other external provider, your email belongs to them and you can be locked out at any time. Of course, this is true. But is self-hosting your email really worth the trade-off for most people? IMO, most people are much more likely to screw up self-hosting — whether it’s by fucking up settings or letting their hosting lapse — than get locked out by Google. I know many Sizzlers are self-hosters — I’m curious if you think the average punter should host their own email? Let me know!

While we’re on self-hosting: I’ve started self-hosting Change Detector to keep track of web pages for reporting and Linkding after Sizzle godfather decryption mentioned it as a Pocket replacement.

Trump’s tech billionaire friends haven’t had much success buying favour

Shall we check in on how Trump’s tech friends are faring? Bloomberg (archive link) published a long piece on Mark Zuckerberg’s MAGA transformation which points it hasn’t resulted in any “tangible gain”, and that Trump’s policies are pushing up Meta’s hardware costs and imperilling their Chinese advertising revenue. Similarly, Trump is now threatening Tim Cook with 25% tariffs on Apple specifically (NYT, $) after initially giving the company an exemption from the 145% Chinese tariffs. Combine that with Amazon’s previous troubles, it doesn’t seem like those billionaires are getting much for donating their money and kissing Trump’s ring, does it?

Leftovers

Oh, Also

A game for those who find Tetris too stressful

Life is hard. We’re all busy. So, when you find a few minutes to relax, why would you choose to spend it dealing with the stress of dealing with plunging blocks that stack up when you make a mistake? Enter Lazy Tetris. It’s the game that you know and love but without the timer, score and gravity. It’s even got an undo button. Give it a try — it’s actually quite satisfying. (PS not to be confused with Lazy Eye Tetris, a version of the game that apparently can help treat the eye malady).

Bargains

Electrical & Electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

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The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.